Albert C. Outler - "Children of Antoninus" (May 12, 1974) / Duke Chapel Recordings / Duke Digital Repository

(soft music)

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(classical music)

6:09

(choir hymning)

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Before we proceed with our service of worship.

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(coughing)

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Let me remind you that there are perhaps hundreds

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of persons outside who would like to be inside.

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And though it perhaps may be a little more sultry

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and a little closer in many ways

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for you to try to move closer together.

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Let me ask you if there is space

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on the row where you're seated,

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please move toward the center aisle,

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so that the marshals may seek persons on the outside aisles.

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Let us continue our worship of God.

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My dear brothers and sisters, children of God.

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If we would honestly seek renewal in order to serve God,

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we must begin by being honest about our past failures.

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Can any of us then deny that our lack of vision,

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our self interest and pride have separated us

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from those who stand in need?

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All of us have been guilty

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of postponing good words and actions

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until the time for saying and doing was passed.

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Therefore, let us honestly confess before God

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the things that we have done or have failed to do,

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which have caused us to be less, than our true selves.

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Let us pray.

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Oh God, in whose mystery we abide,

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and by whose mercy we are redeemed,

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we confess our sin against one another and against you,

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all our transgressions hidden and open.

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The evil done and the goodness left undone.

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We have deceived ourselves about ourselves,

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and worn masks, and not trusted in love.

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We confess that we have been careful with things,

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careless with persons, adept in taking, awkward in giving,

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in love with our fears, and in fear of our loves.

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Forgive us for the times of our anger,

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and the occasions of our stupidity,

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for the times of our cowardice,

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and the places of our hesitation.

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For every time we did not love the goodness of persons,

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nor praise the glory of God.

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Forgive us, lift us up and heal us this day,

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through Jesus Christ our Lord.

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Amen.

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Let us continue in silent prayer

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with our personal needs and concerns.

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Hear the word of God, the Lord God is faithful and just,

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call upon the Lord while He is near,

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wait patiently for the Lord, wait I say on the Lord.

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The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit,

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a broken and a contrite heart, oh God, you will not despise,

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in his name I declare unto you.

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Your sins are forgiven, for his sake.

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Amen.

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(soft music)

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(choir hymning)

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For everything there's a season,

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and a time for every matter under heaven.

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A time to be born, and a time to die,

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a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted.

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A time to kill and a time to heal,

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a time to break down and the time to build up,

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a time to weep and a time to laugh.

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A time to mourn and a time to dance.

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A time to cast away stones,

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and a time to gather stones together.

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A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing,

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a time to seek, and a time to lose,

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and the time to keep, and a time to cast away.

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A time to rand, and a time to sow.

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A time to keep silence and a time to speak,

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a time to love and a time to hate.

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And a time for war and a time for peace.

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What gain has the worker from his toil?

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I have seen the business that God

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has given to the sons of man to be busy with.

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He has made everything beautiful in its time.

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Also he has put eternity into man's mind,

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yet so that he cannot find out

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what God has done from the beginning to the end.

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I know there is nothing better for them than to be happy

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and enjoy themselves as long as they live.

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Also, that it is God's gift to man

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that everyone should eat and drink,

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and take pleasure, in all his toil.

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And now from Romans,

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"I consider that the sufferings of this present time

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are not worth comparing with the glory

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that is to be revealed to us.

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For the creation waits with ego longing

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for the revealing of the sons of God.

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For the creation was subjected to futility,

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not of its own will,

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but by the will of him who subjected it, in hope.

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Because the creation itself,

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will be set free from its to decay,

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and obtain the glorious Liberty of the children of God.

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We know that the whole creation

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has been groaning in travail together until now.

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And not only the creation,

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but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit.

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We groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons,

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the redemption of our bodies.

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For in this hope we were saved.

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Now, hope that is seen is not hope,

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for who hopes for what he sees,

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but if we hope for what we do not see,

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we wait for it with patience.

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Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness

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for we do not know how to pray as we ought,

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but the spirit himself intercedes for us

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with sighs too deep for words.

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And he who searches for the hearts of men,

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knows what is in the mind of the spirit,

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because the spirit intercedes for the saints,

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according to the will of God.

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We know that in everything God works for good

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with those who love him,

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who are called according to his purpose.

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For those whom he foreknew,

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he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son,

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in order that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

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And those whom he predestined, he also called.

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And those whom he called, he also justified.

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And those whom he justified, he also glorified.

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What then, shall we say to this?

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If God is for us, who is against us."

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(soft music)

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(choir hymning)

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Let us affirm our faith.

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We are not alone, we live in God's world.

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We believe in God, who has created and is creating,

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who has come in the true man, Jesus,

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to reconcile and make new,

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who works in us and others by his spirit.

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We trust him,

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he calls us to be in his church, to celebrate his presence,

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to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil,

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to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen,

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our judge and our hope, in life in death,

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in life beyond death, God is with us,

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we are not alone, thanks be to God.

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The Lord be with you.

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And also with you.

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Let us pray.

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Here, oh God, this prayer of Thanksgiving,

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which we offer to you.

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For the homes from which we came,

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for parents, and guardians,

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and sponsors who believe in education,

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and made it possible for us to be at Duke,

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and to leave this university as its sons and daughters.

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He has mercy.

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For the interplay of the colleges and schools,

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undergraduate, graduate, and professional,

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which widen our horizon and deepened our understanding

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and stretched our imagination.

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He has mercy.

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For people, all kinds of people.

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For our classmates who grew with us,

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and accepted us and loved us as friends,

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for teachers who realized

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that a good instructor teaches a person,

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as well as a subject.

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For administrators, maids, secretaries,

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maintenance crews, known and unknown,

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who worked for our benefit.

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He has mercy.

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For memories which will challenge us,

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the colors in the fall, the empty quad in winter,

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the gardens in the spring,

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the library, the lab, the chapel,

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the Cambridge in, newspapers, flyers, and placards,

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for all memories.

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He has mercy.

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For the fact that this university still pays

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more than lip service to

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(speaking foreign language),

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to knowledge, which is linked with reverence,

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to insight that has a place for piety,

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to an all before the universe, and before our neighbor,

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which may be the beginning of wisdom.

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He has mercy.

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For you, your profits, psalmists and law givers,

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for Jesus of Nazareth and for your Holy Spirit.

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(indistinct).

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Oh God, our father, whose light guides us in our darkness,

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whose wisdom informs us and our ignorance,

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whose love inspires us in our indifference,

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whose peace calms us in our turmoil,

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and in whose will we find perfect freedom.

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We rejoice, oh God in the personal,

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and family, and community celebrations

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that are ours today, we pray, oh, father,

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for those now ready

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to make this university, their Alma mater.

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Those who have studied the arts, literature, history,

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business, mathematics, science, religion,

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and other subjects known only slightly to them,

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just a short while ago.

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Those who for four long and hard,

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but rewarding and satisfying years

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have studied diligently to learn,

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those for whom night has often been as day,

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and day, often as night.

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Those who have known the lab or library,

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or study desk better than their bed.

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Those, oh God,

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whose experiences here, only skimmed the surface.

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And those whose experiences also touched the depths

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of their lives.

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Oh God, continue your mercy

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to those who have gained a glimpse of their true potential,

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to those who have found excitement

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in new ideas and new thoughts.

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To those who feel they have come

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to a high moment in their lives,

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to those who feel they have made another step on their way.

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To those who have begun

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to know the satisfaction of serving others,

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teaching, healing, leading, helping.

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But, oh God, in this day of need,

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remind each of us of the world beyond this university,

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the hurt, loneliness, poverty, disease,

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ignorance, prejudice, and greed.

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May at least one member of this class make a difference

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for good in your world.

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No, oh God,

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may each one make his or her world pure,

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more honest, more loving, more kind, more humane.

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May religion and learning,

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continue to guide and direct each one,

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now, oh God accept us as we are.

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Help us to become who we should be,

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and may our lives give glory, praise, and honor to you,

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now and forever.

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Now let us pray together.

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Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,

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thy kingdom come,

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thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day, our daily bread.

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And forgive us our trespasses,

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as we forgive those who trespass against us.

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And lead us, not into temptation,

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but deliver us from evil,

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for thy is the kingdom,

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the power, and the glory forever.

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Amen.

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President Sanford has asked me to say to you

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that prior to the benediction,

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near the close of this service of worship,

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he will have made some decision about

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where the services this afternoon will be held.

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And at the moment it doesn't appear that,

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that decision will be very hard,

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but we're still praying.(laughing)

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Teacher, writer, ecumenist,

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committed churchman, incomparable, preacher,

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man concerned about his fellow human being.

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Friend of this university, friend of all,

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who seek to know and to believe,

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we welcome back to Duke University, to Duke Chapel,

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and to this baccalaureate service.

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And the Reverend Dr. Albert Adler,

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professor of systematic theology,

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at Perkins School of Theology,

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Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

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Welcome Dr. Adler.

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And in the name of God, we hear your word.

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Under the Holy Spirit.

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Amen.

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It is a great joy to be here.

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If I had wondered about symbolism,

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and a Methodist related university,

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I would have thought of the 19th century debates

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about immersion and sprinkling. (laughing)

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But it strikes me that this is going too far.(laughing)

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And if there's anything we can do together

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during this service to affect either the weather,

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or the wisdom of the president, (clears throat)

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let us do so. (laughing)

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But without failing to listen.(clears throat)

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It was 35 years ago to this day

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that I preached my first university sermon in this chapel.

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And it is a week from this day

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that I shout officially retire from my academic career.

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So that in a very real census sentimental moment for me,

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my first and my last sermon,

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in one of the great pulpits, in this country and the world.

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Now, there never was a time when it was more important

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for both young and old together,

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to be honest, in our probings of the paradox

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of our mutual interdependence.

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You are our future,

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about which we are bound to have some misgivings.

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We are your past about which you are bound

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to have some impatience and even disdain.

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There is, and always has been a generation gap.

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One can imagine Adam saying to Eve,

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if we had more of the Genesis story,

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as they exited Eden, just think darling,

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the very first age of transition.

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And then later pitching into Kane with now,

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"When I was young."

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But if our car problem was nothing more than our own version

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of this ancient perplexity,

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all we would need to plead for on either side

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would be more intelligent, love,

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more patient forbearance.

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Generations follow each other, times and seasons change.

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The impatient young grow up soon enough

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to be dismayed by their successors,

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and so the world keeps turning,

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which of course was Coherus point

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in that rather pessimistic passage

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that President Sanford read for our first lesson.

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And yet it has begun to dawn on some of us

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veteran generation Watchers and on many of you as well,

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that there is a new dimension in our current baformets,

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that the devil our best attempts

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to set the human past into a meaningful perspective,

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and our human future into a credible, or hopeful prospect.

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The fact is, that there's even a generation gap

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between you and your predecessors of the 1960s,

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just as there was between them

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and the college crops of 1950s.

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What we're seeing in my judgment

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is much more than ordinary change.

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It is rather the signal of a vast reorientation

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of modern man toward the human future itself.

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Time was, when the safest themes

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for good commencement sermons or bad ones for that matter,

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as I have heard in the Lords, plenty,(laughs)

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were hope and progress.

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Which could assume that each new generation

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was being commissioned

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to strive for what their parents

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had aspired to before then.

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To pave the highway of human progress,

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a few leagues further, onward and upward.

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Our troubles though grave and they were grave too,

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were at least courage bubble in principle.

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The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

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Roosevelt's famous slogan became our rallying cry.

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Whatever the short range,

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the long range human prospect was hopeful,

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and it was our job to promote that prospect.

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We all know of course,

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that your generation is often compared to those of the 50s,

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but quite mistakenly, as I see it,

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I knew that crew very well,

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and they were neither apathetic nor uncaring, really.

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They were quite simply overconfident.

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World War had faded from their memory.

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The Korean episode had ended in what was said to be

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a tolerable stalemate.

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Split Nick was a useful prod to our national effort.

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The air was still breathable, the water pure,

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and all human problems soluble if only,

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if only this, or only that.

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Jim Crow had been dealt a mortal blow,

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the South was making giant strides into modernity.

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The people we turned out at our place during that decade

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had experienced more change in their lifetimes

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than any previous student generation ever.

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And most of them were hopeful

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about themselves and their future.

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We were selectively inattentive to many, a festering sore,

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in our society and our world,

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but we were moving education and social amelioration

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was somehow meshing together.

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The future was ours for making.

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And then came an overreaching of that overconfidence

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in the firestorms of the 60s.

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The story of this incredible disaster

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has been superbly told by Bill O'Neill

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and his, "Coming Apart:

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An Informal History of America in the 1960s."

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It was a time when our intentions were noble,

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but our experiments largely futile.

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When rising expectations turned impatience

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into a moral virtue.

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When pent up outrage exploded into violence.

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And it was all based on the reckless premise

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that if the establishment could be toppled,

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or badly mauled enough,

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the aftermath was bound to be more humane.

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David Napier had a rousing sermon entitled

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"The Time for Burning",

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others had Molotov cocktails.

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There was a constant vision throughout the decade

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from the Port Huron Statement,

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which was a classic to Charley Reich's

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"The Greening of America", which was a road to (indistinct).

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And that was that our belief in progress,

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in eventual progress, had suddenly turned apocalyptic.

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If humanity is our eventual prospect, why wait for it?

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In a country that put a man on the moon, can surely,

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and then you can go on, make a peaceable world,

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erase poverty, usher in a new epoch of brotherhood.

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You can supply one utopian predicate, or another,

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for your prophetic conclusion.

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Now, how differently it all turned out?

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How quickly the dust of death settled on the counterculture?

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The establishment was mauled all right, but not toppled.

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The universities were battered, all right,

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but they survived and are still licking

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their wounds and the scorched groves of academe.

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Our defeating Endo China brought me the peace

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in our national unity here at home,

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and Watergate is cutting off this nation at the knees,

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with the worst yet to come.

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I will remember Henry Luce in the 50s speaking solomnly

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about the American century.

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He knows better now, I suppose,

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but the rest of us are left thrashing about in the throws

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of the most tragic role reversal in American history.

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Even back of Luce, I remember Lincoln Steffens,

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the radical hero of my youth.

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He'd been to Russia,

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and he had brought back that mind blowing epigram.

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"We have seen the future and it works."

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Now my own clearest impression of you,

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that is to say our first student generation of this decade,

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is that you are more prescient and foresighted,

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than some of the rest of us.

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That you have already come to suspect

43:24

the utopian visions of your predecessors.

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You have sensed however, dimly,

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and even without all those heavy think pieces

43:33

by Robert Heilbroner, Roberto Vaka and others,

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that almost nothing is working very well,

43:41

in contemporary society, here or anywhere else in the world.

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You do not have to be told that the political process

43:53

is by way of disintegrating in almost,

43:56

every country on the globe,

43:59

the cream has clabbered even in Australia.

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You realize in part,

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at least what the brute facts of the limited resources

44:09

for human habitation on this planet, really add up to.

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How limited our human resources are

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for coping with relentless crisis.

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Our future was once defined as the Age of Aquarius,

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by the new left and the weather men,

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weather persons, we would say now.

44:34

By Dr. Spock, Bill Coffin, the Brothers Barragan and Ali,

44:38

and where of all those flowers going?(laughs)

44:47

And the irony has been compounded by Dr. Karl Menninger

44:52

asking us in high prophetic Dudgeon,

44:56

whatever became of sin, as if he didn't know.

44:59

And Maria Manez in Newsweek pleading pathetically

45:05

for a rebirth of moral conscience.

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In short, we have seen the future, and it doesn't work.

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Neither the future we once thought we had,

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nor any variation of it now apparent.

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Your generation therefore,

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stands at a very different point on history is timeline.

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It's your unwelcome business to respond

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to a very different future,

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from the one we had hoped to pass on to you.

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In your own lifetime,

45:39

almost every one of the great energizing traditions

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in Western society for at least four centuries,

45:45

has begun to fray and frazzle out.

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And for no single cause either,

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and therefore, with no credible single scapegoat.

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Number one, the Renaissance enlightenment traditions

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of form and reason.

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Number two, the Protestant reformation God's grace

46:05

is man's soul hope.

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Number three, the Roman Catholic Counter-Reformation

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of sacral alternative to secularism.

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Number four, European-American imperialism,

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that went with white supremacy and vice-versa.

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Male chauvinism and chivalry,

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the Marxist vision of heaven on earth

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without priestly or Borzois oppression.

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And seven, even the idea of progress,

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doubtful now for the first time,

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since it took from root in 18th century, Europe.

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Every one of these great movements has lost its magic,

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with no emergent or conceivable alternative

46:53

that looks really promising.

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Yours is the first generation in Western history

46:59

to take zero population growth

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and a negative GMP, for positive values.

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Now, there is a flip side to this dismal record

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and that's the rest of the sermon. (laughing)

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And its theme is simply this,

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that the human spirit is more indomitable and resilient

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than we doomsday prophets sometimes remember.

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This is not a retract tape of my diagnosis just offered.

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No concession that man on his own has any more of a chance

47:37

for his full human potential, than he has ever had,

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which is to say, zip.

47:45

It is simply to reckon with the fact that

47:48

societies have come on glue before.

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And that in such dark age

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is the most authentic human spirits,

47:57

have sunk that taproots in other soils than materialism,

47:59

and secular good fortune.

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Civilizations come and go,

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but all the ways in the gathering, dusk,

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there have been heroes of faith,

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pioneers of the spirit, builders for the long future.

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Most of these builders were nameless,

48:22

but we all more of our human heritage than we know

48:24

to their courage,

48:28

that came from deep personal sources

48:31

than what we call optimism.

48:33

One thanks to Boethius, Sir Cassiodorus,

48:36

Sir Mildmay of the Puritans who survived the wreckage

48:39

of their seventh century 17th century

48:43

Commonwealth in England,

48:44

and help build America with its rubble.

48:46

Just now though,

48:50

it happens that I'm thinking most especially

48:51

of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,

48:54

Roman emperor, stoic philosopher,

48:57

prophet of the doom of that grand Augustine version

49:02

of peace and law, for the whole civilized world.

49:06

The man who with Augustine of Hippo, two centuries later,

49:13

created a special genre of intensely personal literature,

49:17

which struck a vital balance

49:23

between withdrawal and involvement.

49:25

He's, especially in my mind just now,

49:31

because over this past year, one of my colleagues,

49:32

John Dashner and I,

49:36

came upon the same unexpected discovery.

49:38

He and in a class, I in tutorial conferences

49:41

that have all the classics between Homer and Dante,

49:46

more undergraduate students found Marcus Aurelius,

49:50

closer to their own present vibes, than any body else.

49:55

John came finally to speak of them

50:02

as "Children of Antoninus", hence my sermon title.

50:04

Now, this does not mean that these young folks

50:10

who must be your academic cousins somehow or other,

50:12

are self-conscious stoics.

50:18

They certainly are not antiquarians,

50:20

nor were they unappreciative

50:23

of the treasures in Homan, Plato, and Augustan and Dante,

50:25

but what they found in Antoninus

50:30

that impressed the most was a serenity

50:32

in the midst of his constant involvements

50:34

in practical affairs.

50:37

His clear sighted vision of a dismal future

50:39

that never stifled his commitment to public virtue

50:44

in the present hour,

50:49

a 42 devoid of pride or thirst for fame.

50:50

They quoted him to us,

50:57

as if they had found something very special

50:59

that spoke to them,

51:01

as if they too were right for a doctrine of Providence

51:03

in place of their fading faith in progress.

51:08

Your first and last business said Antoninus

51:14

is to be virtuous, wherefore,

51:17

whatever the dignity of human nature,

51:21

yours or that of others, requires our view,

51:25

set about it forth with, with no excuses for delay

51:29

and speaking always out of conscience,

51:33

let it be done in good nature and civility.

51:36

Or again,

51:41

if you can mend a matter, get on with it,(coughs)

51:43

if you cannot, what good will grumbling do?

51:46

Which of course is the text of the familiar prayer

51:50

for the courage to change what can be changed,

51:52

and fortitude to bear with what can't,

51:55

and the wisdom to know what which is which.

51:58

Or yet again, it is my business to oblige all mankind,

52:01

to lay out my whole life for the public good,

52:08

and for bad in the sort of Liberty

52:12

that deprives others of theirs.

52:15

And in this lifestyle, I shall be happy.

52:18

How else?

52:23

Or finally, remember that even the emperors purple mantle,

52:25

and as you know, this was so sacred that it was treason

52:30

for anybody else to wear won.

52:35

The emperor's mantle

52:37

is nothing more than sheep's wool twisted together

52:39

and stained with the gore of a little shellfish.

52:44

Now my own part I've always had to say, and still do,

52:50

that Agustin serves me

52:53

as a superior spiritual mentor than Antoninus.

52:55

But I could see what they had in common,

52:59

a serenity that kept them living, and working,

53:02

and preparing for death,

53:05

in the full view of encompassing disaster.

53:07

Actually, when I would mention

53:13

Marcus's persecution of the Christians,

53:14

the students would come back

53:16

with Augustine's persecution of the Donatists.

53:18

Not really tit for tat,

53:21

but as a function of their realism,

53:23

that takes the human flaw for granted, without condoning it,

53:26

and yet without despising the humanum for it.

53:30

And the part of all this for us is that,

53:35

we can see now in retrospect,

53:38

that even in Marcus's darkling world,

53:40

a new human future was emerging out

53:45

on the fringes of the empire in Africa,

53:49

in the Rhone Valley, in the ghettos of Rome and Alexandria.

53:52

This was why when Rome finally went under

53:58

new human frontiers had already been explored

54:02

by a new community of faith, hope and love,

54:07

which furnished mind and heart, for a new civilization.

54:11

What your generation knows, as mine never did,

54:18

is that there is no Golden Age to return to,

54:22

no new Eden round the band.

54:28

And so you've begun to ask the alternative question,

54:30

how does one live in the world as it is?

54:36

And is likely to be, with realism, courage,

54:41

and yet with all possible human alone and happiness.

54:47

At least in your vowels,

54:52

you are turning away from consumerism and materialism

54:54

toward what might even be called

54:59

a Puritan sense of accountability,

55:01

of Puritan, still a dirty word in modern lingo.

55:03

It would of course, be worth a second thought about

55:09

that fake poverty, bit of yours,

55:12

where you pay good money

55:14

to have your clothes bedraggled for you,

55:16

rather than do it yourself in honest use.(laughs)

55:20

Now, what encourages me most

55:26

in this grim reversal of the human prospect,

55:28

is that it seems less daunting to you,

55:30

or to those of you whom I know,

55:33

than to many of my own generation.

55:36

But this means, or could mean

55:39

that you are closer to that great tradition

55:42

of religious faith,

55:47

that preceded the optimism of the enlightenment,

55:49

and that bids fare to surviving.

55:53

For true religion in the Judeo-Christian tradition

55:56

is not an affair of peaks and valleys

56:00

of optimism and pessimism.

56:02

Men of faith do not welcome hard times,

56:05

but they're not panicked by them either.

56:08

They are alliance as Paul explained so long ago,

56:10

is in God's transcendent power and love,

56:13

forever at work in the human adventure.

56:17

We are heard (indistinct) said he,

56:20

but never hemmed in, bewildered, but never at our wit's in,

56:23

disappointed, but never abandoned,

56:26

struck down, but never driven to real despair.

56:29

When a person has got past weighing his moods

56:34

in the world's scales of cheerfulness and gloom,

56:37

he then, can invest himself in any good cause

56:41

that comes to hand with his nerves alive,

56:45

to human pain and deprivation,

56:48

and thus motivated to move the world,

56:51

with whatever lever he can find and use.

56:54

We have made a good deal of the tragic failures

57:00

of the Judeo-Christian tradition and rightly so.

57:03

But take it all in all, it has a better track record

57:07

for serving the cause of full humanity,

57:10

than other world religions,

57:12

or any of the secular ideologies named them one by one.

57:14

By profession at the very least, and often, in fact,

57:19

the biblical tradition has stressed more than any other

57:23

human freedom, dignity, and hope

57:27

for all humankind in this world and the next.

57:31

Thus, even if you're reading the future,

57:37

as I do without much optimism,

57:39

this does not at all mean withdraw from the world's agonies

57:42

in any pious callousness.

57:46

Incidentally, it was a Christian contemporary

57:49

of Marcus Aurelius, who made this point this way.

57:51

"Christians dwell in the world, even if only as sojourners,

57:56

they love all men, even when persecuted by some,

58:02

they may be poor, but they enrich many.

58:06

They are in the world, but not of it.

58:09

What the soul is to the body,

58:12

that the Christians are to the world.

58:14

And thus it is that I do not envy you

58:18

in your prospective or deal,

58:21

to which your own premonition seem already more sensitive

58:24

than most of the rest of us.

58:28

Nobody ever promised you a rose garden,

58:31

but something far more demanding

58:33

and far more worthy of your humanity.

58:35

By the very same token I offer you no pity either,

58:38

for your resources for the living of these days are

58:42

and can be sufficient.

58:45

If you are willing to rise to that challenge,

58:47

in faith and joyous service in the Lord.

58:51

For actually your hopes and ours are still rooted

58:55

in the very same first and final ground

58:59

of human fulfillment.

59:03

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

59:06

who is the love of God,

59:09

and the liberating and sustaining power of the holy spirit."

59:10

Now, let us suppose that I'm wrong

59:15

in my estimates of your prospects.

59:18

What if, what looks like dust to me,

59:21

brightens into a new Dawn for you?

59:24

Okay, right on, praise the Lord.

59:27

-

Amen.

59:32

-

But what will that avail without a sustaining faith

59:33

that does not fluctuate with the opinion polls,

59:36

or the Dow Jones Index?

59:39

Suppose alternatively, that I'm right,

59:43

and that you are in for a dreadful testing

59:45

of your human capacity for self-transcendence

59:48

and cosmic courage.

59:52

What will that matter,

59:56

if you have your faith, and hope, and love to sustain you,

59:58

to guide you in your life's investments and ablations,

1:00:04

as it has many another generation before you,

1:00:09

and still may for many another,

1:00:12

yet to come whenever or wherever?

1:00:15

Some of us are bound to ask for a light,

1:00:20

on our way into the approaching darkness.

1:00:24

For an assurance now,

1:00:28

of that eventual triumph of God's righteous rule

1:00:30

that faith has promised.

1:00:33

We might do better though,

1:00:36

to trust the experience of Antoninus and Augustine,

1:00:38

and their prescription for human happiness in human service.

1:00:42

"Lay your life and your death,

1:00:47

securely in God's care and keeping.

1:00:51

And thus free up your hands and hearts

1:00:56

for effectual labor in love and joy.

1:00:59

This will give you a steadier foundation

1:01:04

than any for knowledge of the future.

1:01:07

It will be safer than any known way

1:01:10

of human self-reliance."

1:01:13

Let us pray.

1:01:17

Almighty God, whose Providence and mercy

1:01:20

are not offered us to make life easy,

1:01:24

but to make it more meaningful and loving,

1:01:27

give us courage and wisdom and such an unfaltering trust

1:01:30

in dice sovereign grace,

1:01:34

that we may accept our times and our tasks,

1:01:35

with that faith, hope, and love,

1:01:39

that live on in good times and bad.

1:01:41

And that will bring us joy and gladness in all our efforts

1:01:45

to glorify thee, and to serve others,

1:01:49

in the name and spirit of Jesus Christ,

1:01:52

who came amongst us, not to be ministered unto,

1:01:55

but to minister, and to give his life as we may ours

1:01:59

for the love of all mankind.

1:02:03

Amen.

1:02:08

(soft music)

1:02:17

(choir hymning)

1:02:52

-

It is with much regret that I must admit

1:14:18

that the weather has defeated us.

1:14:22

And that the ceremonies wellbeing, Cameron Indoor Stadium.

1:14:25

The parents and friends, will note that you have cards

1:14:30

that will admit you until 2:45.

1:14:34

Some cards specifically provide

1:14:38

that we cannot provide seats in the indoor stadium,

1:14:41

but after 2:45 any vacant seats

1:14:45

will be filled by anyone who cares to come in.

1:14:49

So, I think the graduates already understand the procedure

1:14:53

and we will move and have a very good ceremony inside.

1:14:57

-

Now, my friends fill your minds with those things

1:15:10

that are good and deserving of praise,

1:15:15

things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely,

1:15:18

and honorable.

1:15:25

Put into practice the good you have learned,

1:15:27

and the God who loves us, cares for us,

1:15:32

and gives us peace will be with you, now and always.

1:15:36

(choir hymning)

1:15:48

(bell tolling)

1:16:52

(classical music)

1:17:02

(indistinct chattering)

1:21:28

Albert C. Outler - "Children of Antoninus" (May 12, 1974)

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1. Albert C. Outler - "Children of Antoninus" (May 12, 1974)

Duke University Archives

Albert C. Outler - "Children of Antoninus" (May 12, 1974)

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Duke University Archives